Newark.
_Queries on Costume_ (Vol. iii., p. 88.).--Addison's paper in the
_Spectator_, No. 127., seems to be {156} conclusive that hooped petticoats
were not in use so early as the year 1651. The anecdote in connection with
the subject related in Wilson's _Life of De Foe_, has always appeared to me
very questionable, not only on that consideration, but because Charles was
at the time a fine tall young man of more than twenty-one years of age, and
at the only period that he could have been in the neighbourhood referred
to, he was on horseback and attended by at least two persons, who were also
mounted. Neither can the circumstances related be at all reconciled with
the particulars given by Clarendon and subsequent writers, who have
professed to correct the statements of that historian by authority.